


vivamus, moriendum est

by merrymegtargaryen



Category: The Spanish Princess (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Courtly Love, F/M, mostly - Freeform, with a smutty interlude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27688054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/merrymegtargaryen
Summary: Before he is executed, Stafford receives a visitor in the Tower.
Relationships: Catherine of Aragon/Edward Stafford 3rd Duke of Buckingham
Comments: 17
Kudos: 80





	vivamus, moriendum est

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all I was crackshipping Catherine and Stafford all season and then 2x07 shook me. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> Thank you as always to itslaurenmae for being the cheerleader/beta reader/playlist provider I need but do not deserve.

In hindsight, Stafford may have underestimated the king’s displeasure with him.

He’s never had reason to fear Henry before. He was nearly a man grown the first time he met Henry, a ruddy-faced, rusty-haired baby who squalled incessantly. As Lizzie’s cousin, and by default, Henry’s, Stafford had spent a great deal of time with the boy; first at the formal, required occasions, and later as chosen companions. They had fought together, drank together, even courted ladies together. That Henry should choose the butcher’s boy from Ipswich over his own cousin, a peer of the realm...it is unthinkable.

But here Stafford sits, in a damp cell in the Tower.

Behind him, he can hear the creak of the gate; when he turns to look, he sees Queen Catherine, pale but regal in fur and damask.

“Your Grace,” he says with surprise, wishing he was wearing more than his linen tunic to receive her.

Catherine turns to dismiss the guard at the gate before turning back to Stafford. “My Lord Stafford.” Her words mist in the air. He had hardly noticed the cold in his rage, but she must be freezing. “I have seen some of the charges. They are absurd.”

He gives her a disbelieving smile, unable to comprehend her presence here, in his grim little prison. “You should not have troubled yourself. I’ll be here a few days.”

But Catherine shakes her head. “I see it clearly now. The king’s mood has darkened, and the cardinal exploits him for his own gain. But...I may still reason with Wolsey. I believe we have a greater understanding.”

Now it is Stafford’s turn to shake his head. Catherine loves Henry, of that he is certain, but she has not known him as long as Stafford has. “Henry will humiliate me, but he will not kill me.”

“Even so,” she says, and it is clear she does not believe him, “beg for the king’s forgiveness. Wiltshire and Brandon are too afraid to speak out.” She trembles, whether from the cold or her fear, he does not know. “Promise me you will beg him.”

They gaze at one another for a long moment, their breath misting in the air as she watches him, imploring him. 

“Very well,” he says at last. “I will beg.” He moves towards her, his voice softening. “For you, my queen.”

She trembles again, wringing her hands. “Thank you.”

He takes her hands almost without thinking, pressing them between his own. “You should not be here, my queen. This cold, damp room is no place for you...especially now.”

She gives him a closed-mouth smile, one she often gives when she does not want others to worry about her. He has seen that smile a thousand times in the last twenty years, from Henry’s black moods and unkind words, which grow blacker and unkinder with each passing day. His cousin is not handling things well, but Catherine...Catherine is as calm and beautiful as ever. “I am quite well.”

“But--”

“It is gone,” she says softly, lowering her eyes. “I am well now.”

She doesn’t look well. Not ill, exactly, just full of grief. How many times has she conceived? And only one child survived the cradle. 

He has fought battles before, he has known loss, but he cannot imagine fighting the same battle over and over only to know the bitter taste of defeat each time. What was it Henry had said to her? 

_ One final chance. _

Her final chance had bled out of her, and when Henry finds out...well, maybe it will be Stafford intervening for Catherine then.

“You are the strongest woman I know, Catherine,” he whispers. “And stronger than most men, too.”

She smiles a real smile this time. “And you are charming to a fault, my dear Stafford.” She lifts their joined hands to her lips, kissing his knuckles with such tenderness it stops his breath. 

“Catherine…”

In truth, he does not know who kisses whom first, but neither of them pulls away. He cradles her head gently, deepening the kiss as her fingers dig into the linen of his shirt. 

“Edward,” she whispers against his lips.

He shudders, so unused to hearing his Christian name from his queen’s lips. He doesn’t think she’s ever said it before. 

She wraps her arms around him, kissing him with ardor. When was the last time Henry shared her bed? And when was the last time she enjoyed it?

_ She deserves to have some happiness in her life. _

He keeps one arm at her back, bending down to hook the other behind her knees. She gasps as he lifts her, carrying her the short distance to his bed. Modest though it is, he lays her upon it delicately, cupping her cheek as he leans over her.

“Are you sure you are well?” he murmurs.

She sits up on her elbows, kissing him again. “I have not felt this alive in a very long time, my lord.”

He returns her kiss hungrily, kneeling over her body. She shrugs aside the furs around her shoulders, sitting up to let him tug at the laces up her back. He will not get her completely out of her dress, but just enough so she can move…

Catherine’s hands are tugging at his shirt now, her lips kissing his bared flesh. He groans at her soft kisses, taking the shirt from her hands and tugging it over his head. 

Catherine’s white skin is flushed, her eyes dark as she looks up at him. He has always known he was a handsome man, but to see her clear desire for him…

He crawls down the bed, pushing her skirts up her legs. 

“Edward--”

“Let me please you, my queen,” he murmurs.

Catherine nods, her chest heaving. He lowers his head, and though he cannot see her, he can feel her whole body arch as he touches her. Her fingers scrabble beneath her skirts, tangling in his hair as he licks and kisses her. He’s given pleasure before, but never with such care. Then again, he’s never pleasured a queen before. And it has been far too long, he judges, since his queen received any pleasure of her own.

Catherine muffles her cries, not wanting to be heard by his gaolers. He knows they could walk in on him at any moment, but the queen herself had dismissed them, and he prays that is enough to keep them at bay.

Catherine comes apart on his fingers and tongue, her whole body shuddering as pleasure takes her. He cannot help grinning against her, pleased to know that  _ he _ made her like this. He begins to kiss and lick her once the last tremors have passed, determined to bring her more pleasure, but the hand at his head tugs him up to look at her. Her whole body is flushed, her pupils blown wide.

“I want you inside me,” she says plainly. “Please, Edward.”

He climbs up her body, kissing her shoulder, the swell of her breast, her collar, neck, jaw, and finally, her perfect, rosy lips. “You are a queen,” he murmurs. “You need never say ‘please.’ I am yours to command.”

Her nimble fingers are undoing the laces of his pants, touching him through the cloth. “Then I command you to be inside me,” she whispers in his ear.

He groans, both at her command and at the hand slipping into his pants. She pulls him free, kissing his neck and shoulder before she lies back against his pillows. They are flat, threadbare things, but she looks like a goddess reclining in her litter, all flushed and glowing. She  _ is _ a goddess, and Henry is a fool not to worship her.

_ But I am no fool. _

He lowers himself between her legs, never taking his eye from hers as he pushes slowly inside her. He doesn’t miss the way Catherine’s rosy lips part, the way her head tips back as he fills her. Her fingers grip the threadbare pillow beside her; Stafford takes her hand in his, twining their fingers as he presses her hand into the bed.

It is cold and damp in the Tower, but Catherine is warm and welcoming beneath him. Stafford loses himself in the feel of her, their bodies moving together, two hearts beating as one. Her pleasure takes her suddenly, back arched as she clenches around him. Stafford muffles a groan, trying to help her ride out her own pleasure before his comes upon him...and then Catherine wraps her legs tighter around his hips, whispering, “Inside me, Edward. Please.”

It’s the  _ please _ that undoes him, that makes him bury his face in her shoulder as he comes. For half a heartbeat, he cannot tell where he ends and Catherine begins.

It is the happiest half a heartbeat he’s ever known.

.

He holds her for a long moment after--but not long enough.

“You promise me you will beg?” she asks, her fingers tracing the scars on his chest. He has many of them, from battles, from tourneys, from stupid stunts as a boy. Catherine’s skin is smooth and unblemished, and not for the first time in this last hour, he feels unworthy to even hold her in his arms.

“I promise,” he murmurs, fingers ghosting down her spine. 

She sits up, the cold air settling around him now that she is taking her leave. “I should go.”

She should, and he knows it, but he cannot bring himself to say or do anything that might hasten her leaving. As she begins to pull her dress back into place, however, he finds himself sitting up, doing up the laces of her dress. He plants a kiss just below her hairline as he ties off the laces, his sigh making her skin prickle.

Catherine stands up, pulling her furs over her shoulders. “Thank you, Edward.” 

And then she is gone, leaving nothing behind but a coppery strand of hair on his threadbare pillow.

.

Stafford does beg Henry, for all the good it does. When Catherine has run out of breath defending him, she mouths the words  _ please beg. _

So he does. Not for himself, and certainly not for Henry. 

He begs for her.

His queen.

They still drag him out to the scaffolding erected on the Tower Green in the morning, where he stands chained beneath a steady fall of rain. 

Henry always did like a good show.

Catherine offers him a small smile from above, and though he does not dare smile back, he nods to show her he understands. Just as he had begged Henry before the court, she has begged Henry in private.

He does smile openly when Wolsey’s sentence is interrupted by the arrival of Thomas More bearing a letter from the king. Catherine reads it, her own smile fading as she understands the words. Stafford, too, feels his smile slip, hearing Henry’s words with her voice.

He is truly going to die, then.

“My king...my queen...I love you both,” he tells Catherine, who forces a smile at him through her tears. What he would not give to feel her in his arms again. “I never wished you any harm.” Catherine. Catherine, who he lay with after...after… “My last act upon this earth is to offer a prayer for your long and happy reign...and to wish you a son. With all my heart...a son.”

Catherine’s smile is true now. Henry still does not know that she miscarried...and if God is good, he never will.

Stafford moves his eyepatch over the only eye he has left, and then he knows no more.


End file.
